Seahawks senior VP Lopes moves to Huskies

One of the Seahawks’ longer-tenured executives, senior vice president and general counsel Lance Lopes, moved across Lake Washington Tuesday to become senior associate athletic director at the University of Washington. Lopes will have oversight of marketing, communications and multimedia rights and report to athletics director Scott Woodward.

“I am excited to welcome Lance to the Husky family,” Woodward said in a release by the university. “To add an executive of Lance’s caliber to our leadership team will provide a distinct edge in navigating the ever-changing landscape of external affairs in college athletics.”

Lopes joined the Seahawks in 2001 as a member of the executive team after serving as general counsel for the Green Bay Packers from 1993-2000. Besides legal affairs, he oversaw construction of the Seahawks offices/practice facility in Renton and for three years oversaw corporate partnerships.

In 2009, he had a primary role in the hiring of Pete Carroll from USC to succeed Jim Mora as Seahawks coach, a move vital in the Seahawks’ Super Bowl triumph Feb. 2.

“I am grateful to the Seahawks organization for the opportunities and experiences they have provided me over the past 13 years,” Lopes said in the university statement. “I am excited to change course and to embrace the new challenge of college athletics, particularly with such a great university and athletic department staff.”

Lopes was a tight end for Linfield College when the Wildcats won NAIA national championships in 1982 and 1984. He obtained his law degree in 1989 from the University of Oregon and worked at law firms in Seattle and Honolulu.

He joins senior associate athletic airectors Jen Cohen, Shondell Reed, Stephanie Rempe and Robert Sasaki as members of Woodward’s executive staff. Lopes fills a vacancy created when O.D. Vincent, a former UW head golf coach, left in November to become executive director of the Northern Trust Open, a PGA tourney at the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles. Vincent succeeded former NBA great Jerry West.

YourThoughts

Is this move a step up? He’s one of a half-dozen people with the same title.

This appears to be a significant loss for the Seahawks front office. Did something happen with the team to spark this change? How long have they known he was leaving?

Who is expected to replace him?

jafabian

That’s an interesting jump in employers. Is Lopes looking to advance? Unless Schneider has his sights set on moving to a larger market a la Theo Epstein he’s staying with the Hawks so there’s little opportunity to advance within the club. So is there something about Woodward we don’t know about? I guess we’ll see.

Wildcat Honk

It certainly bodes well for the Huskies — those Linfield guys know how to win!

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